Artist Adad Hannah displays his work at the San Antonio Museum of Art on August 31, 2012.

Photo By Courtesy Kevin Ragnott

"I'm Lost, Donald" by Kevin Ragnott

Photo By Helen L. Montoya/San Antonio Express-News

Artist James Smolleck, who hasn’t exhibited since 2006, has mounted an exhibit, “Neophyte Doublestare Into the Eighth Dimension” at Sala Diaz.

Photo By Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News

"Aphrodite adjusting her sandal," a 1st century BC terracotta from Greece is part of the San Antonio Museum of Art "Aphrodite and the Gods of Love," exhibit, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012. The exhibit was organized by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and features seven pieces from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy. It runs from Sept. 25, 2012 to Feb. 17, 2013.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

This piece bears the namesake of the exhibit at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center by artist Veronica Castillo Hernandez called "Renacimiento desde las entranas de mi ser" or "Rebirth from the depths of my being."

Photo By Courtesy The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Andy Warhol's 1967 work "Marilyn" is part of "Andy Warhol: Fame and Misfortune," Feb. 1 - May 20, 2012 at the McNay Art Museum.

Photo By Courtesy Ruiz-Healy Art

Mexican painter Benjamin Dominguez often puts contemporary touches, such as a cellphone in "La Conversacion," into his colonial-inspired compositions.

Photo By Steve Bennett/San Antonio Express-News

Pleasure projects recur in a new series of paintings by Rainey on exhibit in "Populux: A Hyphenated Culture" at the Southwest School of Art.

Photo By Photo by Steve Bennett

Dallas sculptor George Tobolowsky scours junkyards for scrap to make his art, such as this monumental metal bra made to draw attention to breast cancer research.

The year's best art exhibits spanned the centuries, from enduring monuments to a Greek goddess to scraps of metal salvaged from junkyards not long ago. Here are our arts writers' picks:

“America's Finest: Recent Works by Vincent Valdez,” McNay Art Museum, October: Valdez did more with less in his second solo exhibit at the McNay, creating images of battered boxers left painfully exposed against a stark white background. His relatively spare paintings of a military funeral procession — vignettes haloed in gauzy light — cut all the deeper for their economy. The exhibit is up through Jan. 27.

“Intimate Encounters,” San Antonio Museum of Art, September: At curator David Rubin's invitation, Canadian photographer Adad Hannah visited SAMA, where he spent several days creating the original series “Daydreams of a Drunken Scholar” using models and objects from the museum's collection. The photographs were lush, but it was Hannah's video works — living tableaus with just a hint of movement — from the series and others included in the show that delighted and mesmerized.

“Sketchbook,” Studio One Zero Three, July: A look inside the visual diaries of San Antonio artist Albert Alvarez and Brooklyn artist Kevin Ragnott offered a refreshingly uncensored and unselfconscious look at the creative process along with the people behind the images.

“Neophyte Doublestare into the Eighth Dimension,” Sala Diaz, April: For his first exhibit since 2006, James Smolleck transformed the humble gallery into a ritual space that echoed the mysterious settings for his exquisite, symbol-laden — and yes, indecipherable — ink drawings.

“Aphrodite and the Gods of Love,” SAMA, September: Touted as the first museum exhibition of classical works devoted to Aphrodite, the show originating at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, offered a complex look at the goddess, not to mention the gorgeous nudes.

“Renacimiento desde las entrañas de mi ser” (“Rebirth from the depths of my being”), Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, September: Anyone convinced that folk art exists in stasis need only to have seen the vibrant work of Veronica Castillo. The Mexican clay artists brings hundreds of years of tradition into the now with works that address contemporary social and political issues.

“Andy Warhol: Fame and Misfortune,” McNay Art Museum, February: Organized by McNay curator Rene Barilleaux, who got his pick of the collection of the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, “Fame and Misfortune” — with its soup cans and Brillo boxes, enigmatic films, celebrity portraits and literally ripped-from-the-headlines images of car wrecks and suicides — managed to be a good introduction to the pop icon, as well as comfort food for longtime fans.

“Benjamín Domínguez: New Works,” Ruiz-Healy Art, May: Growing up in the '40s in the small Mexican village of Jiménez, Chihuahua, Benjamín Domínguez remembers the circus coming to town as “the event of the year.” He fondly recalled those days in baroque paintings with disruptive modern touches (angels with cellphones) in “New Works” at Ruiz-Healy Art. “The Baroque,” he said, “allows me to get inside the human psyche and examine the good and evil that one finds there.”

“Populux: A Hyphenated Culture,” paintings by Rainey, Southwest School of Art, August: San Antonio artist Rainey — who was “'Mad Men' before 'Mad Men'” — made 20 paintings over a feverish two months for “Populux” at the Southwest School of Art. Orbs and asterisks, atomic symbols and text in swirly or blocky type, household objects and glamour girls in Grace Kelly head scarves float atop modular blocks of color — yellows, oranges, browns — in untitled works where Instamatic Kodaks, big-tube television sets, dial telephones and hi-fi stereo systems still reign supreme. In Rainey's world, kitsch rules and the digital revolution never happened.

“found objects,” George Tobolowsky, Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, September: Dallas artist George Tobolowsky doesn't shy from the term “junkyard dog.” He scours scrap yards for bulky industrial castoffs for his steel sculptures, showing 20 of these clever, monumental works at Blue Star. What's ingenious about the work is Tobolowsky rarely alters the steel pieces — the heat to bend and shape them would be tremendous; rather, he fits pieces together in balanced compositions “like a jigsaw puzzle.”

“Governing Bodies,” 11 Texas women artists, Gallery Nord, October: “Women's bodies are now politicized more than ever,” said Edinburg artist Phyllis Evans, one of 11 Texas women artists who made powerful statements — some in a shout, some in a whisper — in “Governing Bodies,” an exhibition of politically charged art just in time for the election cycle at Gallery Nord. Linda Arredondo made paintings such as “Death,” using her breast milk as paint, while Sarah Sudhoff bared more than her soul in courageous self-portraits.

“Estampas de la Raza: Contemporary Prints from the Romo Collection,” 44 Latino artists, McNay Art Museum, October: From portraits of Frida and Che to images of lowriders, pachucos, soldiers and street scenes, the imagery of “Estampas” at the McNay reflected the visions of a body of artists straddling geographic and cultural borders. Featuring more than 60 prints by 44 artists from the collection of UTSA's Romos, most gifted to the museum, the show encompassed the most respected names in Chicano and contemporary art, including César Martínez, Alex Rubio, Vincent Valdez and Ester Hernandez.